It's all Greek to Brewer

Arizona is facing a structural budget deficit of $1.9Billion in 2011 and $1.5Billion in 2012.  A daunting task considering the 2010-2011 budget is only $8.5Billion and the 2011-2012 budget is $9.6Billion.  And with a large Republican majority in the Senate and House and a Republican Governor the only options they are considering are spending cuts.  Cuts to healthcare , cuts to education, and cuts to services, but no cuts to prisons or public safety.  Could the hands off on the prisons be related to the Brewer Administration’s ties to the Corrections Corporation of America: Chuck Coughlin and Paul Senseman?
While Brewer and her squadron of flying monkeys led by Pearce, Adams, and Kavanaugh were too preoccupied with their xenophobic anti-immigration quest, state finances weren’t placed on the back burner, hell they weren’t even in the kitchen!  Further, her antagonistic rhetoric and war of words with the White House over immigration will come back to haunt her as she now needs a federal waiver to reduce funding of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment (AHCCC) else the state faces further lawsuits and forfeiture of the $7Billion it gets from the federal government for Medicaid.
Now that the one-time gimmicks, such as selling state buildings and leasing them back, are no longer in the deficit fighting arsenal, these misguided Republicans think the budget deficit can be solved solely with spending cuts.  Unfortunately, these economics-challenged lawmakers haven’t realized that Arizona is facing revenue shortage not excessive expenses.  According to George Cunningham, former state budget director, the state’s tax burden of $1,000 of income is the lowest it has been in decades. 
What to do?  Firstly the states leaders need to follow the lead of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker and find the right balance of tax increases, borrowing, and spending cuts.  But most importantly, they need to work with the private sector in generating investment and get the state growing again.  Unfortunately, when your governor acts like this, the chances of success are slim to none and slim left town because he is Hispanic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Secular American Jew and a Love for Israel

As many of you know, I have dedicated many postings to the State of Israel on a range of topics including: it’s history, the present day government, the Jewish-Palestinian question, and the region in general.   Growing up in a liberal conservative Jewish household (the oxymoron is quite common as American Jews were almost exclusively political liberals and the conservative branch of Judaism the most common) and attending Hebrew school as a kid you obviously build an affinity for the State of Israel.   I do not remember the Six-Day War of 1967, but I have vivid memories of celebrating Israel’s 25 th anniversary in 1973 and the Yom Kippur War later that year.   As a ten year old attending Yom Kippur services I saw the worried looks on my parents and the other adults at the shul as members of the congregation would periodically step outside to get news reports from car radios and transistor radios (We still drove and used electrical appliances during the high holidays, though several fam
Read more

September 10, 2001 was a Monday

Where were you on September 10, 2001?   What were you worried about?   What occupied your thoughts, worries, hopes, and dreams?   What were you excited about?   What were you interested in? September 10, 2001 was a Monday. Cindy and I were still laughing about the recent visit from the Three Amigas: Leah, Roseanne, and Valerie, and the adventures of Sedona, a certain screen door, a forgotten carrot cake, and breakfast for champions.   We were also dealing with a 1995 Chevy Blazer that seemed to be on its last legs, surviving our first Arizona summer, thinking about what to remodel in the house, dealing with the concept of a Home Owners Association, thinking that my best shot at a World Series game maybe with the fledgling Arizona Diamondbacks, and looking forward to a visit from Scott, Lori, and the boys. But what about America?   We knew nothing about a tiny town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville; Guantanamo Bay was the setting for A Few Good Men, and we still taped shows and listene
Read more

Sunni and Shia: So who are the bad guys again?

Baby faces vs. heals?   Cowboys vs Indians?   Good guy always where the white hat.   “Dig is he a good guy or bad guy?”   Bad guys always, looked, well, bad. You’re either with us or you’re against us.   Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are the axis of evil. Americans, for the most part, have a pretty simple outlook on conflict: just tell us who the bad guys are and we’ll know who to root against.   We tend to lump similar races and peoples into larger buckets, mostly due to the media’s inclination to treat us like potential Jeff Foxworthy competitors.   But the world is anything but simple and as I have written previously, the Middle East is as confusing and confounding place as you can find.   During the Iran and Iraq war of the 1980’s most Americans took the position that “…as long as they kill each other, I’m good.”   When civil war ravaged Afghanistan, we joined the side of the Mujahedeen because they were fighting the Soviets and the Soviets were our archenemy, a position they occupie
Read more